Dr Eileen Hogan
Dr Eileen Hogan is a Lecturer in Social Policy at the School of Applied Social Studies and a member of the Institute for the Social Sciences in the 21st Century at University College Cork. Eileen holds a degree in Arts (Music), a degree in Social Science, and a Masters in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from University College Cork. She was awarded a PhD through the Institute for Popular Music Studies, University of Liverpool in 2015. Her research interests sit at an intersection of urban geography and social policy, and she is interested in exploring the relationship between well-being and people’s sense of place in urban environments, often through a social practice theory lens. She is particularly interested in ethnographic and participatory modes of inquiry, and values community-engaged research practices in producing and disseminating new social scientific knowledge that can contribute to policy-making for a more sustainable and equitable society.
Session
Children and young people’s mobility freedoms are often limited in westernised societies, where intensive parenting practices, car-dependence, and perceptions of urban risk together inform the control of their autonomous movements (Silonsaari, Simula and te Brömmelstroet, 2024). Here, we present a new research project aimed at countering such limitations by involving children and young people as pro-cycling activists, who can advocate for their velo-mobility rights within their own families and communities and in wider society and give insights into how they imagine cycling futures (Silonsaari, 2024). The researchers are involved with various local networks that are focused on making their city a healthy, playful and inclusive space, and with wider national and international collectives that share similar ambitions about child-centred sustainable urban development (such as UNICEF Child Friendly Cities).
In this talk, we engage in discussion about potential child- and youth-centred, playful and creative methods designed to elicit information about key research questions, including: children and young people’s perspectives on their mobility freedoms and rights; how families come to decisions about members cycling as a family or independently; what influence each family member has on the decision-making process; identifying different family ideologies that influence decision-making, such as perspectives on gender roles, children and young people's rights, child and youth participation, sustainable living, etc.; perspectives on children’s cycling capacities from different family members; and, the success of local policy initiatives in advancing cycling by children and young people. We also consider how to disseminate research findings in ways that privilege children and young people’s voices, facilitate their agency as cycling advocates, and celebrate their development as cycling activists.